Mo Fong
With 25+ years of experience as a tech executive, educator, and leadership coach, Mo inspires leaders to navigate complexity, fix friction, and drive impactful change in their organizations.
I am a friction fixer, dedicated to helping tech leaders and entrepreneurs who are passionate about making a positive social impact through innovative products and services. Through the intersection of education, engineering, and entrepreneurship, we can create an effective team culture, streamline processes, and build scalable systems that propel businesses from hundreds to billions of users. By addressing organizational friction, we can extend the reach of these solutions to a broader audience. I've seen this in action during COVID when we scaled Google Classrooms exponentially to teachers worldwide and at PayPal when we enable small and medium businesses for the first time to accept credit card payments on their website with a single click. Sometimes, the right kind of friction needs to be added. With Generative AI, friction serves as guardrails to misinformation and hallucinations as the speed of innovation accelerates.
As an organizational and executive coach. and speaker, I help leaders lean into their strengths to achieve their personal and business goals. I believe that successful teams are built on the unique strengths of each person which contributes to the overall team culture, productivity, and effectiveness. In collaboration with organizational leaders, I co-design experiential workshops and learning opportunities that value diversity of thought, draw out each team member’s capabilities, and find the right mix to achieve outstanding business outcomes.
How we work is influenced by our history, culture, and identities. I support clients to articulate their authentic narratives by shedding self-judgment and by leading with confidence, freedom and joy. By developing a signature style that balances rational decision-making with empathy, we can be practical and business-minded while living out our dreams and caring for others.
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FULL BIO
Leveraging 25+ years of experience in various industries as a tech executive, Mo’s coaching and consulting practice helps organizations and clients assess and root out destructive friction and to navigate challenges with greater agility. Mo has experience in building effective teams, leading through crisis and change management, and providing insights through an entrepreneurial mindset.
Mo is an adjunct lecturer with the Stanford Management Science and Engineering Department. Mo is also a Harvard Business School career and executive coach. She is the founder of Friction Fixers, dedicated to make work better by rooting out destructive organizational friction while planting good friction. She is also the founder of LeiFongCoaching, LLC focused on supporting women of color in tech to lead with confidence and joy. She is also the President and founding member of the Asian Women Coaching Collective (awcoachingcollective.org) which is a community of diverse Asian women coaches convening to empower and transform the experiences of Asian women leaders and ourselves as coaches in the workplace, at home, and within our communities to sustain high performance and live a purposeful and congruent life. She is ICF ACC certified and graduated from the Hudson Institute of Coaching. She holds coaching certifications in Positive Intelligence (PQ), MHS EQ-i 2.0, and Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI).
She has served as the Executive Director at STVP, the Stanford Engineering Entrepreneurship Center . Prior to STVP, Mo spent 15 years at Google leading global teams in various functional areas including Sr. Director of Google Technical Solutions for Google Learning and Education, Google Assistant and Search, Chief Compliance Officer for Google Pay, and Director in People Operations. She started her career as an assistant principal and high school math and chemistry teacher.
Mo is an advisory board member for Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students (BASES), Stanford Women in Tech Entrepreneurship (SWiTE), Develop for Good, Televisit.org, 100kin10.org, and the National Girls Collaborative Project. She is also an angel investor in various edtech and healthcare start-ups including LightUp.io, earlyday.com, somefriendsmedia.com, and trialspark.com. Mo served as a board member of the Stanford Asian Pacific American Alumni Community, and was active in Google’s Asian Director+VP Leadership Group and Asian Googler Network. She holds a BS in Chemical Engineering and MA in Education from Stanford University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
I am a friction fixer, dedicated to helping tech leaders and entrepreneurs who are passionate about making a positive social impact through innovative products and services. Through the intersection of education, engineering, and entrepreneurship, we can create an effective team culture, streamline processes, and build scalable systems that propel businesses from hundreds to billions of users. By addressing organizational friction, we can extend the reach of these solutions to a broader audience. I've seen this in action during COVID when we scaled Google Classrooms exponentially to teachers worldwide and at PayPal when we enable small and medium businesses for the first time to accept credit card payments on their website with a single click. Sometimes, the right kind of friction needs to be added. With Generative AI, friction serves as guardrails to misinformation and hallucinations as the speed of innovation accelerates.
As an organizational and executive coach. and speaker, I help leaders lean into their strengths to achieve their personal and business goals. I believe that successful teams are built on the unique strengths of each person which contributes to the overall team culture, productivity, and effectiveness. In collaboration with organizational leaders, I co-design experiential workshops and learning opportunities that value diversity of thought, draw out each team member’s capabilities, and find the right mix to achieve outstanding business outcomes.
How we work is influenced by our history, culture, and identities. I support clients to articulate their authentic narratives by shedding self-judgment and by leading with confidence, freedom and joy. By developing a signature style that balances rational decision-making with empathy, we can be practical and business-minded while living out our dreams and caring for others.
-----------
FULL BIO
Leveraging 25+ years of experience in various industries as a tech executive, Mo’s coaching and consulting practice helps organizations and clients assess and root out destructive friction and to navigate challenges with greater agility. Mo has experience in building effective teams, leading through crisis and change management, and providing insights through an entrepreneurial mindset.
Mo is an adjunct lecturer with the Stanford Management Science and Engineering Department. Mo is also a Harvard Business School career and executive coach. She is the founder of Friction Fixers, dedicated to make work better by rooting out destructive organizational friction while planting good friction. She is also the founder of LeiFongCoaching, LLC focused on supporting women of color in tech to lead with confidence and joy. She is also the President and founding member of the Asian Women Coaching Collective (awcoachingcollective.org) which is a community of diverse Asian women coaches convening to empower and transform the experiences of Asian women leaders and ourselves as coaches in the workplace, at home, and within our communities to sustain high performance and live a purposeful and congruent life. She is ICF ACC certified and graduated from the Hudson Institute of Coaching. She holds coaching certifications in Positive Intelligence (PQ), MHS EQ-i 2.0, and Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI).
She has served as the Executive Director at STVP, the Stanford Engineering Entrepreneurship Center . Prior to STVP, Mo spent 15 years at Google leading global teams in various functional areas including Sr. Director of Google Technical Solutions for Google Learning and Education, Google Assistant and Search, Chief Compliance Officer for Google Pay, and Director in People Operations. She started her career as an assistant principal and high school math and chemistry teacher.
Mo is an advisory board member for Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students (BASES), Stanford Women in Tech Entrepreneurship (SWiTE), Develop for Good, Televisit.org, 100kin10.org, and the National Girls Collaborative Project. She is also an angel investor in various edtech and healthcare start-ups including LightUp.io, earlyday.com, somefriendsmedia.com, and trialspark.com. Mo served as a board member of the Stanford Asian Pacific American Alumni Community, and was active in Google’s Asian Director+VP Leadership Group and Asian Googler Network. She holds a BS in Chemical Engineering and MA in Education from Stanford University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
How to Be a Friction Fixer to Make Work Better
Format: Keynote or Workshop
Presentation Description:
Are you on the receiving end of friction that slows meaningful progress or perhaps you’re unknowingly creating the friction? Do you ever feel like meetings, processes, or office politics are stealing time from your most important work? What if you could make the right things in your organization easier and the wrong things harder?
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Mental Fitness: Unlocking Positive Intelligence to Succeed in Today’s Fast-paced World
Format: Workshop or Keynote
Presentation Description:
Facing constant demands, navigating tough conversations, or feeling stuck in unproductive thought patterns? You’re not alone and there’s a way to build the resilience and clarity you need to thrive. Just as physical fitness requires consistent training, your brain benefits from intentional exercises that leverage its neuroplasticity—the ability to rewire itself for better...
Leveraging AI as a Coach for High Performance
Format: Keynote or Workshop
Overview:
This workshop is designed for individuals who have thought about using Generative AI coaching tools to achieve their aspirational and behavioral goals and are curious to learn more. For any high performers, coaches can assist in guiding the individual to peak performance as individual contributors or on a team. Similar to sports coaches for elite athletes, leadership coaches are...
Finding Your Voice in a Noisy World
Introduction
In a world saturated with information, opinions, and external pressures, finding and refining your unique voice has never been more critical. Whether in professional settings, personal relationships, or public discourse, clarity of expression and authenticity are essential for impact and influence. This proposal outlines a structured approach to helping individuals discover, strengthen, and effectively communicate their voice amidst the noise of modern...
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